As has already been noted here by some of our fine writers, Ted Kennedy has at long last gone on to join his equally famous siblings in history. While he was the youngest of nine, most of the early attention was focused on Joe, who died in the war, John the iconic president, Bobby – who came close but was cut off before following his brother – and Ted himself. Ted, I think, represents the last of the real power generation of Kennedys. That family, at least for a time, was about as close...

CNN’s Jack Cafferty has an interesting question for viewers of his show today, and invites readers to contribute to the discussion. How is the American Dream changing? We’re in the midst of a recession not seen since the great depression. Millions of Americans are out of work, unemployment has soared to 9.4 percent. Millions of good paying jobs have been have been shipped overseas never to return. And the manufacturing base that was once the engine of our economy is on life support. We simply...

One of the perpetual bones of contention in the ongoing health care reform debate is the precise number of people in serious need of help in this area. All too frequently we encounter various, exaggerated estimates, including some fact challenged quotes right here at TMV, which put the number as high as 50 million. Well, that’s certainly a troubling statistic for anyone to contemplate. In fact, the New York Times had a heartfelt opinion piece this weekend which recognizes a number of serious problems...

We’ve all seen videos of these young people on their mountain bikes, hopping around, jumping over ramps, going up stair cases on one wheel. Perhaps some of you readers engage in these activities yourself. So… you think you can bike? I got news for ya, kid. You can’t bike. In fact, you’d be lucky if somebody told you that you bike like a girl. (From the good folks at Break.com) Check out this video. NOTE: I’ve watched sections of this several times trying to figure out...

How many times have we heard President Obama deliver one version or another of this standard stump speech item? “If you like your health insurance plan, you keep your health insurance plan. If you like your doctor, you keep your doctor.” And whether you’re reading the actual wording of H.R. 3200 or the various takes of analysts in the field, that seems to be true… at least for a little while. But there are some significant monkey wrenches tossed into the machinery by this...

Here in the Empire State, Governor David Paterson is in trouble and there’s no two ways about it. Though his approval numbers have actually rebounded a bit lately, the upward trend still leaves him hovering in the neighborhood of 30 after hitting a low of 18 earlier this year. (Maybe he should run for Congress instead? Those sorts of approval numbers are par for the course there.) And in a way, you almost have to feel sorry for the Governor. Much of the tide he’s fighting was not of his...

Just this morning I received a jarring reminder of just how fast time flies and the years slip away from us. It was 33 years ago this month that The Ramones’ self titled debut album scratched and clawed its way up near the top of the charts and shook the fledgling era of evolving rock and roll to its roots. I spent the majority of my time listening to what’s now considered classic rock – Pink Floyd, Zepplin, The Who, Rolling Stones… but when I first caught wind of the tall,...

Last month, in a column at Pajamas Media, we talked about the Franking Sign Monster. At that time we discovered that the Franking Commission – usually little more than a glorified group of hall monitors charged with making sure none of the members are stealing stamps – had been censoring the mailings of certain Republican Congressmen because they didn’t care for the characterizations and language used to describe Democratic proposals. Well, nearly a month has gone by and it seems...

Back when I was young, Kris Kristofferson warned us all of the dangers of the silver tongued devil… the person who would come off as a charming fellow and say things you want to hear, then turn around and do you wrong. If you’ve been paying any attention at all to the running series of comments from both President Obama and Congressional Democrats on matters of spending, the deficit and the national debt, you should be getting an old, familiar feeling. It was only six months ago to the...

While in many cases it has fallen on deaf ears, we’ve made efforts in the past to clear up some of the misinformation being handed out by proponents of Democratic health insurance reform proposals around the web, including here at TMV. I was mentally adding a few check points to that list today while reading Rick Moran’s latest column at Pajamas Media, “Take Health Insurance, Please!” One of the non-technical but completely valid points is this continual complaint I hear...

In a summer season fraught with bad news and political unrest, there is at least one glimmer of sunshine ready to light up our miserable and tawdry lives. From her twitter account, Meghan McCain has announced that she will be sitting in for Elisabeth Hasselbeck while she is out on maternity leave. And obviously I couldn’t be happier for her. Of course, this may not have much of a direct impact on my life, but that’s hardly my fault. I’ve never actually seen an episode of The View....

The popularity of our war in Afghanistan is heading in the same direction as that enjoyed by the invasion and occupation of Iraq, according to a new poll at the wapo. A majority of Americans now see the war in Afghanistan as not worth fighting, and just a quarter say more U.S. troops should be sent to the country, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. Among all adults, 51 percent now say the war is not worth fighting, up six percentage points since last month and 10 since March. Less...

On this morning’s edition of Morning Joe on MSNBC, Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY) showed up to talk about his version of health care reform which he will be pushing for a vote on in September. He also expressed regret about President Obama’s lack of enthusiasm for insisting on a public plan and his general unwillingness to go “far enough” in restructuring health care in this country. But he even managed to shock me when Joe Scarborough got him to rip away the mask entirely...

One of the books I read this summer was Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew B. Crawford. I don’ line up for every philosophical treatise that comes down the pike, but this one really peaked my interest. It deals with our evolving relationship with “things” and how we view them, as well as the denigrating view taken of youths who choose to go into “the trades” rather than heading off to college to join the “knowledge economy.” This is the subject of my column...

This just in from one more group of pollsters. A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll found 57% of adults say the stimulus package is having no impact on the economy or making it worse. Even more —60% — doubt that the stimulus plan will help the economy in the years ahead, and only 18% say it has done anything to help improve their personal situation. That skepticism underscores the challenge Obama faces in trying to convince the public that the stimulus has helped turn the economy around. It also could complicate...

One member of our talented stable of writers here at TMV, Marc Pascal, published a long, detailed column on the health care debate yesterday which raises many questions currently being debated around the nation. Having taken such time and care to do so, I feel it only appropriate that a few of these points receive a full response. Unfortunately, Marc falls into the all too common usage of phrases which I see popping up all across the web in these and other debates, wherein the author begins an assertion...

For a hopefully relaxing Sunday morning, a few scenes from the garden to put your spirit at ease. Mother Nature is still failing to cooperate for the most part, but our plants are gamely working away during an unusually cold and rainy summer. What? You thought that somebody who totally fails to qualify as a liberal could enjoy working in a garden? Remember… even Hitler painted landscapes and flowers.(There are full size images available by clicking on the thumbnails below.) The sweet corn...

Thinking of all the books you’ve ever read, common stories passed down from generation to generation, the lives of real people who you find interesting, radio shows or more, what movie would you like to see made which has never been produced? Or, to widen the field a bit, we could include movies which actually were made, but were done poorly or before the technology was available to do them justice. In the fiction / sci-fi field, I’ve been wondering for some time why we haven’t...

How much of a debt do we owe to those who have paid their debt to society? In the 1962 classic, Birdman of Alcatraz, Burt Lancaster plays the role of Robert Stroud, a double murderer who learns to care for tender young birds while in the lonely hole of solitary confinement. The killer goes on to become one or our foremost authorities on ornithological matters, winning over our hearts in the process. By the end we are left wondering why Mr. Stroud couldn’t have been set free to spend his declining...

We just HAD to spend all that money on the stimulus plan. We all know this, because if we didn’t we would have been thrust into the worst economic disaster since the great depression. Heck, maybe worse! There were flying monkeys reported in many parts of the nation and nary a ruby slipper in sight. As our friend Yid with Lid reports, initial reports of the demise of the United States economy may have been exaggerated. The supposed stimulus bill had little or nothing to do with the turnaround....

If I were you, I’d be on the lookout for pale horsemen flying through the skies, because in addition to other signs of a pending apocalypse, Keith Olberman has named our friend and very conservative pundit, Ed Morrissey, as the best person on the world. Initial rumors that Olberman had: (a) confused him with Ed Schulz, or, (b) suffered from some sort of unfortunate neuro-cardial event, were quickly dismissed. The news of this prestigious award, of course, sends Allahpundit into spasms of confusion...

Some of them clearly carry heavy traffic, at least in relative terms. For those of us who are addicted to politics and regularly haunt sites like TMV, we probably think this is a fairly important and mainstream topic. But it seems that there are other subjects which draw considerably more eyeballs on the old intertubes. I found an article referencing one such avocation which seems to dwarf political blogs in popularity. Before you click through the jump, can you guess what it is and put your suggestion...

Astroturfing is with us now, for better or worse, and everyone is doing it. To stretch the inevitable football analogy to the breaking point, modern technology has put Astroturf in every stadium across the nation, except possibly a few of the smallest high schools. This is the subject of my column this week at Pajamas Media, Of Course There’s Astroturfing by the GOP. As always, I invite you to read, share your thoughts, and for my Republican friends, get your hate on!

Just a reminder, in case you’re going to be around, that my partner in crime and I will be back on the air at 10 am Eastern time this morning with another edition of Mid Stream Radio. While I’ve grown weary of writing about the subject here and ramming my head into walls, we’ll tackle the question of whether or not health care reform has become the new abortion question in this country, with both sides so fired up and angry that they’re just out for blood most of the opponents...

As covered in the Washington Post this week, NASA has released its latest report on their ability to locate and track dangerous objects in our solar system which have the potential to cross our orbit and possibly impact the Earth. (Full .pdf report is available from JPL here.) The news isn’t great. Congress tasked NASA several years ago with the job of locating the lion’s share of an estimated 20,000 asteroids and comets buzzing around the sun. The task was to be completed by 2020. To...